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Friday, May 21, 2010

firewall-wizards Digest, Vol 49, Issue 11

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Today's Topics:

1. Gartner as usual.. (ArkanoiD)
2. Re: a cutting-edge open-source network security project
(Darren Reed)


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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 May 2010 03:10:12 +0400
From: ArkanoiD <ark@eltex.net>
Subject: [fw-wiz] Gartner as usual..
To: firewall-wizards@listserv.cybertrust.com
Message-ID: <20100520231011.GA9812@eltex.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=koi8-r

http://www.paloaltonetworks.com/literature/whitepapers/Gartner-Magic-Quadrant2010.pdf

..pure, organic, unblended BULLSHIT.


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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 16:57:04 -0700
From: Darren Reed <darren.reed@oracle.com>
Subject: Re: [fw-wiz] a cutting-edge open-source network security
project
To: firewall-wizards@listserv.cybertrust.com
Message-ID: <4BF5CC50.8090700@oracle.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"

Ok, since you've asked...


Lets look at the list of reasons why to use it:

* Have you ever wanted to troubleshoot some networking problems,
only to realize that your own firewall prevents your test packets
from getting through?


I don't need DFD for this and if I'm using un*x software as my firewall,
I probably need to be looking at a whole lot of things to understand
what's going wrong (or right.)

* Have you ever wanted to block attackers from communicating with
you at all?


Any good IPS software should do this..

* Have you ever wanted to implement port-knocking
(http://www.port-knocking.org/)?


I think port-knocking, as a security mechanism, has already been debunked.

* Have you ever wanted to run peer-to-peer programs from behind NAT?
What if you decide to switch internal computers? Wouldn't you want
a tool that could detect use on the other computer and redo your
port forwarding automagically, and close (de-forward) the port
when it was no longer being used?


Running peer-to-peer from behind a NAT usually requires something that
does UPnP. There are tools out there (like miniupnpd) that already do
this. Using DFD for this is a not likely to go anywhere because support
for it isn't already built into bit-torrent tools (unlike UPnP.)

* Have you ever just wanted to make a temporary rule that expires
after a certain amount of time?


If there is really a desire to do this, then it should be natively
supported by the firewall software. (I've recently added this to ipfilter.)

* Have you wanted to make a simple change to the firewall rules and
easily revert it, without logging in an editing a file?


I think every un*x firewall allows you to do this. If the current
thought is that it is "too hard" to do right, then I'd like to know how
DFD thinks it can make it easier. For example, if you want to insert a
rule at a specific point, you somehow need to convey that regardless of
whether or not DFD is used. For very simple rule sets, making a change
is simple. But as firewall rules grow, making a simple change becomes
more fraught.

* Have you ever wanted to have a queue of the last N blocked hosts,
so that you don't end up with a ton of outdated perjorative rules?


Again, that sounds like something that should be supported natively by
the firewall. (I've added it as something to add to ipfilter in the future.)

* Have you ever wanted to do all this with open-source software alone?


We do already most of this today, so yes...

* Have you ever wanted to do all of these at one time without the
different systems stepping on each other's changes?


That's the only real bit of value here. But use of rsync over ssh can be
just as effective.

When I first read about DFD, I thought there was something to be excited
about.. but the more I think about it, the more I realise not really. Or
perhaps a better thing to say is, not along the lines that are being
considered here.

For example, above it says "have you ever wanted to have a queue of the
last N blocked hosts" but it seems to provide nothing to support adding
a host to that queue. For some reason, the thought is that
adding/removing rules is the thing to do. au contraire. The rules define
my security policy, what changes is the set of IP#'s that I want to
apply segments of my security policy to.

Darren


On 19/05/10 10:00 AM, Thomas Ptacek wrote:
> You're right, but that's kind of a straightforwardly-solved problem, isn't it? Just park it behind SSH.
>
> The heresies involved in Travis' project are much more violent than the command/control channel. Interested in your real thoughts.
>
> On May 18, 2010, at 7:49 PM, Darren Reed wrote:
>
>> On 2/05/10 03:48 PM, travis+ml-firewalls@subspacefield.org wrote:
>>> Quoting:
>>> http://www.subspacefield.org/security/dfd/
>>>
>> ...
>>
>> How do you authenticate connections to the dfd daemon?
>>
>> If all I need is netcat (as per the example in your web
>> page above), then that doesn't speak too highly of the
>> security of the daemon itself.
>>
>> Are you effectively giving all users that can connect
>> to it root level privilege on the firewall?
>>
>> Darren
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> firewall-wizards mailing list
>> firewall-wizards@listserv.icsalabs.com
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>
>
> ---
> Thomas Ptacek // matasano security // founder, product manager
> read us on the web: http://chargen.matasano.com
> check out playbook: http://runplaybook.com
> reach me direct: 888-677-0666 x7805
>
> "The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
>
>
>
>
>
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End of firewall-wizards Digest, Vol 49, Issue 11
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